4. The Superpower

• Why did the USA become involved in the cold war 1945-51?

  -       America position seemed secure in Asia and Europe

  -       USA monopoly on atomic weapons in 1945
• Capitalism: privately owned companies and/or citizens own the means of production and are used for profit – the state doesn’t own means of production – prices are decided based on competition in the free market
• Communism: Working class owns everything and everyone works towards communal goals – no wealthy or poor – community distributes what it produced based on need
• Socialism: Works earn a wage they can spend as they choose – the govt. owns and operates the means of production [also supports eliminating class structures]
• -       Yalta Conference – agreed that Germany would be divided and forced to pay war reparations, half to go to the USSR
• o   Yalta Axioms: Roosevelt. Believed Stalin was ‘normal’ and it was possible to work with him

  o   Riga Axioms: Stalin was dangerous and could only be held back by threat of force
• -       Truman Doctrine: seemed to imply USA would stop the spread of communism
• Marshall Plan:

  -       $13 billion package to help European countries recover from effects of WWII

  -       USSR didn’t attend conference and refused permission to other countries under its sphere of influence

  -       Aid designed to lose the appeal of communism
•  

  Berlin Airlift 1948-49:

  -       Berlin had been divided into two

  -       Western powers relied on soviet goodwill to get supplies to West Berlin

  -       By 1948, clear Marshall plan was working, and recovery was on the way. IN contrast, Soviet zones remained poor

  -       Stalin cut supply lines to Western Berlin

  -       US and USA arranged airlifts of supplies to Berlin

  -       No violence – show of power
• NATO:

  -       North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

  -       April 1949

  -       Western European states signed defensive alliance

  -       Main purpose was to prevent soviet expansion

  -       Stalin retaliated by creating a similar treaty – the Warsaw Pact

  -       Defensive alliance
• HUNGARY – 1956

  -       Moderate communists in Hungary threatened to leave the Warsaw Pact

  -       Khrushchev sent in tanks to stomp out the rebellion

  -       Leader of the resistance was removed from govt. and shot, and a more acceptable soviet-sympathizer was installed

  -       US did not intervene
• West Berlin

  Used by USA, UK, and France for spying and espionage
• Khrushchev threatened

  To give East Germany control of the west's access routes to West Berlin
• Summit meeting between Eisenhower and Khrushchev

  1. Relaxed

  2. Nothing was solved
• Hope that second conference would improve relationships


  But just before, an American spy plane was shot down and the pilot captured
• Eisenhower admitted, and Khrushchev refused to attend the conference
• Berlin built a wall in 1961
• America saw the Berlin Wall as a symbol of communism
• West refused to recognise the legitimacy of East Germany
• Fall of China to communism was unexpected (1949)
• Some blamed the state department


  Saying more could have prevented the fall of China to communism
• 'China lobby' campaigning for an investigation into how the USA had let if fall
• Development of cold war in Europe after 1945
• Increasing US involvement with Asia [Korean war]

  Intensified fear of communism in USA
• Klaus Fuchs convicted of giving nuclear secrets to the USSR
• One of his associates [Harry Gold] was arrested for the same charge in the USA
• There was a belief that the soviets developed nuclear weapons too quickly
• Soviets had infiltrated many branches of US govt. during WWII
• Truman passed Executive Order 9835 'loyalty boards'


  1. Checks on govt. employees

  2. Over four years 1,200 were fired and over 6,000 resigned
• USSR detonated first nuclear weapon


  1949
• Truman ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb


  First tested in 1954 – leading to arms race
• HUAC


  Set up in 1938 to monitor activities of extremist groups which may present danger to the US
• Hollywood investigations

  1947-1951
• Hoover warned that communists were using the prestige of prominent people to unwillingly help the communist cause
• The Crucible

  Author Miller was interrogated about meetings with communist writers, prompting him to write this play about witch-hunts in Salem
• Ronald Reagan was one of 12 actors/writers finished or blacklisted from Hollywood just for being called before the committee
• The supreme court in Dennis Vs the United States said that people could be imprisoned for things they said, going against the first amendment of right of speech
• McCarren International Security Act [1950]

  All communists organisations had to register with the Attorney General, and no communist was to be employed in a defence plant
• The Catholic church supported McCarthy because he was a catholic, and because communism doesn't support the belief of God – they supported his 'religious' crusades
• The Poles supported McCarthy because they had no support for Russians, and many had come to America to flee Russian oppression